Khan, Omar, Ahmed, Imran, Cottingham, Joshua, Rahhal, Musa, Arvanitis, Theodoros N. and Elliott, Mark T. (2020) Timing and correction of stepping movements with a virtual reality avatar. PLoS One, 15 (2). e0229641. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0229641

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Abstract

Research into the ability to coordinate one’s movements with external cues has focussed on the use of simple rhythmic, auditory and visual stimuli, or interpersonal coordination with another person. Coordinating movements with a virtual avatar has not been explored, in the context of responses to temporal cues. To determine whether cueing of movements using a virtual avatar is effective, people’s ability to accurately coordinate with the stimuli needs to be investigated. Here we focus on temporal cues, as we know from timing studies that visual cues can be difficult to follow in the timing context.
Real stepping movements were mapped onto an avatar using motion capture data. Healthy participants were then motion captured whilst stepping in time with the avatar’s movements, as viewed through a virtual reality headset. The timing of one of the avatar step cycles was accelerated or decelerated by 15% to create a temporal perturbation, for which participants would need to correct to, in order to remain in time. Step onset times of participants relative to the corresponding step-onsets of the avatar were used to measure the timing errors (asynchronies) between them. Participants completed either a visual-only condition, or auditory-visual with footstep sounds included, at two stepping tempo conditions (Fast: 400ms interval, Slow: 800ms interval).
Participants’ asynchronies exhibited slow drift in the Visual-Only condition, but became stable in the Auditory-Visual condition. Moreover, we observed a clear corrective response to the phase perturbation in both the fast and slow tempo auditory-visual conditions.
We conclude that an avatar’s movements can be used to influence a person’s own motion, but should include relevant auditory cues congruent with the movement to ensure a suitable level of entrainment is achieved. This approach has applications in physiotherapy, where virtual avatars present an opportunity to provide the guidance to assist patients in adhering to prescribed exercises.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Electronic computers. Computer science. Computer software T Technology > T Technology (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Computer Science Faculty of Science > Engineering Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School Faculty of Science > WMG (Formerly the Warwick Manufacturing Group)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Virtual reality, Computer simulation, Simulation methods, Avatars (Virtual reality)
Journal or Publication Title:	PLoS One
Publisher:	Public Library of Science
ISSN:	1932-6203
Official Date:	2020
Dates:	Date Event 2020 Published 28 February 2020 Available 2 February 2020 Accepted
Volume:	15
Number:	2
Article Number:	e0229641
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0229641
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Related URLs:	https://journals.plos.org/plosone/

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